The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)

Man accused of telling others to beat two victims

- By Lisa Backus

MIDDLETOWN - A city man is free on $250,000 bond after being charged April 27 with directing a 2020 beating that left a man with stab wounds and his father with other injuries, court documents said.

Eliseo Rivera, 52, of 11 Clinton Ave., is accused of telling a group of men to attack the father and son who he believed were infringing on his drug territory, an arrest warrant said.

A group of men showed up at the victims’ apartment building on Main Street in the early morning hours of May 20, 2020, and proceeded to beat the father and son while trying to drag them down a staircase, according to the statements the pair gave to police while they were being treated for their injuries at Hartford Hospital.

The attackers kept asking “where’s Eddie?” but the father and son kept telling the men their names weren’t Eddie, an arrest warrant said.

The son was stabbed twice, once in the ankle and once in the knee, during the incident while the father also received several injuries that left his face bloody, police said. The father and son couldn’t identify their attackers and said one of the men pulled out a handgun but didn’t use it. The attackers took the son’s keys and cellphone during the beating, the victim said.

Police were able to identify some of the assailants who went into the building before the attack and left immediatel­y following through surveillan­ce video on nearby shops, the warrant said. Police also identified Rivera who was with the group but didn’t go inside the victims’ apartment building, an arrest warrant said.

While interviewi­ng one of the suspects in the assault, the man told police that Rivera had orchestrat­ed the attack and told people where to go while he waited outside, police said.

Two men who were identified by police through the videos were charged with the assault. Rivera was charged April 27 with conspiracy to commit firstdegre­e burglary with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon, accessory to second-degree assault and accessory to firstdegre­e unlawful restraint.

He is due back in state Superior Court in Middletown Thursday.

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